Two men aboard a Spirit Airlines flight this week were the latest inductees into the unruly passengers’ club after getting into a fist fight in the plane’s cabin. A family on the flight captured footage of the brawl.
According to a report from Boston CBS News affiliate WBZ-TV, the men will no longer be able to fly with Spirit.
“We do not tolerate disruptive behavior of any kind, and the passengers involved are no longer welcome on any of our flights,” Spirit said in a statement cited by the outlet. It also spoke with the Grome family, who captured video of the incident. You can see that video here.
Laura Grome said the men were fighting through the whole fight before they started throwing fists.
“It was like a melee, a scrum going on,” she said.
Passengers boarded Flight 3907 from Myrtle Beach, S.C., for a two hour and five-minute flight to Boston Logan International Airport, per FlightAware. As the passengers were getting off the plane at around 11:45 p.m., the two men began fighting.
In the Grome family video, a flight attendant can be seen trying to break up the scuffle. She stood in the aisle between the two men.
“Other passengers can be heard yelling as the fight between the pair spills into the seats,” said WBX-TV. Grome said people on the flight had been trying to calm the men down and some were even jumping over their seats as the fight broke out.
Per the video, when the fight finally settled down the flight attendant told the men that police were on the way. She told other passengers to leave the plane.
For some of them – including the Grome family – getting off the plane wasn’t very easy.
“We were kind of, like, boxed in,” said Nicole Grome. She added that at least one of the brawlers was able to get off the plane “scot-free” and she had concerns about what actions were taken regarding the incident.
WBZ-TV said it reached out to Massachusetts State Police to see if there are any charges for those involved.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, unruly passenger incidents on flights have increased. They reached a peak of nearly 6,000 in 2021, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2022 the administration announced a zero-tolerance policy.
While unruly passenger reports decreased in 2022 and 2023, there were still more than 2,000 reports during each year. As of April 28, there were already 649 reports in 2024 – more than in the entirety of 2017.
Audacy reported on another brawl on a Southwest flight this February. This month, Audacy also covered a story about a man who was charged $20,000 after he became “physically combative” on a flight from London to New Jersey in March.